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Three new books from Columbia Theological Seminary faculty members

2010-09-24

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Decatur, GA. The range of scholarly interests among Columbia’s faculty is obvious in the titles of three new books released this fall. The authors are William P. Brown (Old Testament), Mark Douglas (Christian ethics), and Stanley Saunders (New Testament). Also apparent is that each of these three authors intends for the reader to do something with what they find inside the cover. Here, from publishers’ announcements, is a short overview of each book.

William P. Brown, professor of Old Testament, is the author of Psalms, Interpreting Biblical Texts (Abingdon). Biblical texts create worlds of meaning and invite readers to enter them; interpreting psalms requires entry and re-entry, listening and re-listening to a performance that is never the same.

“Bill Brown is front and center in the new wave of Psalm scholarship,” says Walter Brueggemann, professor emeritus.“His work is, of course, grounded in a consensus view of genre analysis. But he pushes imaginatively beyond that in rich and perceptive ways toward the notion of sub-collections in the book of Psalms, its canonical shape, and its poetic performance. In the end he finishes with a substantial theological probe. This book supplies access to all that is needed for entry into the riches of this defining resource for faith, piety, worship, and obedience.”

Mark Douglas, associate professor of Christian ethics, is the author of Believing Aloud: Reflections on Being Religious in the Public Square (Cascade). In the fall of 2006, Dr. Douglas was invited to write weekly editorials for The Sunday Paper, a secular weekly newspaper, published in Atlanta. In this new book, which includes a foreword by Walter Brueggemann, Dr. Douglas reflects on that work and the editorials themselves. Taken together, they model a particular vision of Christian engagement in the public sphere. This book offers a single, sustained argument about why and how the Christian faith should shape the public lives of its adherents. And, while many recent books have made this case, this one actually shows how one person has done so.

Stanley Saunders, associate professor of New Testament, is the author of Preaching the Gospel of Matthew (Westminster John Knox). This commentary for preaching Matthew, a companion to WJK’s successful Preaching the Gospel of Luke, Preaching the Gospel of John, and Preaching the Gospel of Mark, works through every passage of Matthew’s Gospel with exegetical insight and a keen sensitivity to the demands of preaching.

Dr. Saunders’s commentary follows the biblical text, divided into passages. After each passage, he presents a number of possibilities for how to preach that text. He includes a wealth of creative and pertinent tips to help preachers apply Matthew’s narrative to the lives of today’s churchgoers.